Animal activists torch home of Novartis chief

Anti-vivisectionists in Austria are thought to be behind a string of attacks on the Swiss-based pharmaceuticals giant Novartis.

In the most recent attack, on Monday in the Austrian town of Bach, activists are believed to have set fire to the holiday home of the company's chief executive officer, Daniel Vasella. A fire accelerant was found at the scene, suggesting it was started deliberately, reports Reuters.

Last week, activists desecrated the graves of Vasella's parents, stealing an urn containing the remains of his mother. That echoes a similar incident in the UK in 2004, when
activists dug up a coffin and stole the remains of a woman whose family
had run a business breeding guinea pigs for research.

(Image: AndrewHecht / Flickr)

In Austria, the activists also left the message "Drop HLS Now" on
the headstone of Vasella's mother's grave, a warning for Novartis to
cease funding animal experiments at Huntingdon Life Sciences - a
company in the UK that conducts animal experiments for pharmaceutical
companies.

Huntingdon Life Sciences has been the focus of a huge campaign by activists whose leaders are now mostly in jail following trials last year. But Novartis says it has not worked with HLS for years.

About three weeks ago, graffiti attacking Novartis and Vasella was
scrawled over the church in Vasella's village of Risch in central
Switzerland. According to CNBC, messages have also been left on roads
(with video) near Vasella's home, including: "Vasella is a killer", "We
are watching you", "Death to Vasella", and "We'll be back".

There have also been attacks on Novartis facilities and the houses and cars of other employees.

The tactics are similar to those used by British activists at the
height of campaigns in the UK to close down HLS, with vicious attacks
against specific individuals. Although attacks have dwindled in the UK
since heavy clampdowns by police, they have been growing in the US and Europe.

I don't know how it is in Austria, but in many, many other world cultures and mine too, the act of stealing somebodies mother ashes would be considered such a unbelievably monstruous act as to turn every person in society into a determined enemy of those that commited this act. I think groups like this are practically insuring that they will be viewed as crazy, utterly heartless terrorists by the wider society.

I believe that these people "Ricardo" calls terrorists are spot on 100% correct. I also believe that if BIG PHARMA wants to create phony drugs such as the Swine Flu "vaccine" and then are caught injecting people not with any vaccine but with the actual swine flu itself, as was the case in Mexico, then those people should be held for murder and their houses should burn to the ground. Big pharma are scumbags who are spreading phony diseases all over the world in order to profit off of murder. Big Pharma needs to live in fear of their lives because they are killing people and the people know this.